


when it rains, it pours

by sporadic_obsession



Series: Post Break-Up SKTS Feels [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Depression, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Sakusa Kiyoomi, Post-Break Up, Sakusa Kiyoomi-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28927947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sporadic_obsession/pseuds/sporadic_obsession
Summary: Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t cry.That is to say, he doesn’t cry when people expect him to. Whenever bad news is delivered to him, Kiyoomi’s expression doesn’t change. His breathing doesn’t quicken, and his hands don’t tremble — he stares as whoever was unfortunately tasked with breaking the news watches him, awaiting his tears, allows himself to be held, and then turns away.What’s another drop in the ocean?
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: Post Break-Up SKTS Feels [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127879
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	when it rains, it pours

**Author's Note:**

> ... this is mostly just me venting and writing down stuff I don’t have a way to vent about otherwise. I’m putting it out here because I like the way it came out, there’s some things I’ve written here and there I think are pretty.  
> I feel bad for taking my sad thoughts out on Sakusa, though. Oof.
> 
> If you wanna scream at me on twitter about this, you can find me [here](https://twitter.com/sprdc_obssn)!  
> 

Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t cry.

That is to say, he doesn’t cry when people expect him to. Whenever bad news is delivered to him, Kiyoomi’s expression doesn’t change. His breathing doesn’t quicken, and his hands don’t tremble — he stares as whoever was unfortunately tasked with breaking the news watches him, awaiting his tears, allows himself to be held, and then turns away.

What’s another drop in the ocean?

He remembers each time he has ever cried, however. He thinks back on his life and recalls when he first realized his brain was wired a little different.

He was eleven years old, just home from school with his older sister to accompany. His mother talked to him in a weird voice, and he couldn’t understand it. Him and his sister chalked it up to tiredness — they were too young to imagine it could be anything worse. Kiyoomi hadn’t been old enough when their father passed out and fell ill, he didn’t recognize the signs - the garbled speech, the vomiting, the downturn of half of his mother’s lip.

The sound of the kitchen table moving alerted him and his sister to the fall.

When Kiyoomi and his sister reached the kitchen, their mother was sitting back against the wall, having pushed the kitchen table slightly offset, despite how heavy it was due to its marble top, when she fell. Kiyoomi stared wide-eyed as the woman who he’d learned to lean on cried and grabbed at his sister.

His sister, just a year older than him, did the best she could with it — she called their brother, living two hours away, for help. Kiyoomi heard his mother cry out about being scared, and he stared, and stared, and eventually something clicked when the ambulance came. A stroke, they said; an emergency, they cried. Their neighbour had called the ambulance when she heard the commotion from where their front door was open.

A stroke. Like the one that had led to his father’s death.

The last time Kiyoomi properly cried, he was holding a little too tight to his sister’s shirt, asking her if that’s what was going to kill them all.

When, months later, their mother-in-law told them that their mother was gone, Kiyoomi didn’t cry. He allowed himself to be pulled into a hug, and when he was released he went back to the living room. Some classmates sent him a message, having heard the news, but he didn’t reply. He pet the dog that had laid by their side that morning, an unusual thing of its own, and the rest of the day blurred out.

Two days later, the funeral upon them, Kiyoomi didn’t cry. He attempted a joke about bringing his only black shirt on his bag, which fell flat, and that was it. He didn’t cry when people barged in wailing about his mother being gone — people he had never even seen before. He didn’t cry as he huddled close to his siblings as the priest said his parting words. He refused to kiss his mother goodbye before they buried her, and he didn’t cry as his mother’s coffin went down — not until he heard his brother’s voice break, and a few quiet tears slipped through.

After that, he remembers crying when his sister beat him on the floor because he wouldn’t tell her something embarrassing he did; he didn’t sob or say a word, the tears just slipped through as his head hit the floor — to this day, he remembers the sensation of the cold tiles below him, the uncomfortable feeling crawling over his skin as his sister took her anger out on him. It only happened that one time, but Kiyoomi still thinks about it every now and then — he doubts his sister remembers, and no one else knows has ever been told, but he can never forget.

He remembers crying as he stood under the rain for an hour in his pyjamas, after his sister moved away from the house they shared with their older brother, who’d been taking care of them. He doesn’t remember why he cried, but he remembers the feeling of the droplets showering him from the sky as they hit him, hair sticking to his cheeks as he faced upwards, hoping the water could make him feel something. The tears slipped from his eyes and mingled with the rain, but not even that was enough to cleanse his soul from the darkness lingering there, growing bigger day by day.

He remembers crying more silent tears as he vomited black in a dirty old hospital bathroom, after having his stomach cleansed of one too many pills he took earlier that day. He didn’t cry as he called his best friend, who lived in a different country, and said his apologies and farewells. He didn’t cry as he was forced to call his brother to let him know he needed to go to the hospital because he’d tried to kill himself. He didn’t cry when he heard him whisper “oh, Kiyoomi, what have you done?” when he picked him up from their house so he could take him to the emergency room.

When his grandfather died, a man he’d been living with alongside his siblings since his mother passed away, Kiyoomi didn’t shed a tear. He made it through hearing the news with his impassive face and a nod. He made it through more wailing from people he didn’t know about the man’s death. He thought they were all hypocrites — his grandfather had always been bad mouthed by everyone in town; not that Kiyoomi blamed them. He’d heard the stories — the beatings his grandmother took, the walks in the night with her children in her arms when she had to escape his abuse; hell, Kiyoomi remembers the time the man vowed he was going to kill him and went after him to beat him, only stopped by his older brother’s interception. He was a mean, old drunk — and yet, as his coffin went down and his sister-in-law held his hand, he felt the telltale wet path of the tears mark his pale cheeks.

Kiyoomi didn’t cry when he went through his first heartbreak, either. He stared at his first love and allowed him to say the words that would end them. He never found a moment to cry over that — there was never a catalyst that made the tears fall, in the end. Another piece of his heart broke that day, but he could hardly tell anymore — everything was already so lost, some of the shards of what he used to be permanently missing from inside his chest, it was just another casualty of life.

As he drives through his old neighbourhood, he feels the wetness build in the corners of his eyes. It’s been a year since his last relationship fell through the cracks of his broken soul. He knows he’s to blame for it — he’d been too distant, too unwilling to take the step across the line he’d set for himself; a line that kept his spirit from being tainted by darkness, once again. Atsumu had needed more — the kisses weren’t enough, the gifts weren’t enough; he had needed Kiyoomi to give himself wholly.

Kiyoomi wasn’t sure he was whole to begin with.

When Atsumu broke things off between them after two years of dating, Kiyoomi didn’t cry. He stared into the brown eyes he’d grown to cherish, into the lips that brought the smiles he’d learned how to grow over their time together, and he didn’t cry. His face was impassive, dark eyes taking in the sight of Atsumu’s angry tears, ears registering every one of his pained words, but he didn’t cry.

He never found a catalyst for the tears that built inside his chest either; the storm remained behind his lips, behind his eyes, and it festered there — imponent, terrifying, but never leaving.

He drives down the road and he lets the memories flicker through — meeting Atsumu by accidentally bumping into him at the corner that divides the road between Kiyoomi’s house and his. He sees their figures sitting hand in hand as he drives by the park where they had their first kiss. He sees the spot where they exchanged valentine’s gifts one year, and a little down the road is the house they shared for half a year. He remembers it all, and he drives through it all — he needs to, if he wants to get to his destination.

The radio is quiet as he continues to drive, his hands caressing the leather of the steering wheel, the creases in the material grounding him as he begins to get too lost inside his head. He steers off to the side at one point, once he’s made it past all the houses and the areas where people usually walk. He finds an empty spot on the side of the road, far enough that he knows he won’t be found, and he kills the engine.

The silence is suffocating.

Leaving his car, he grabs his wallet and phone to slip into his pockets — they’re the only belongings he carries with him. The keys stay put on the ignition, and he doesn’t bother grabbing them; he won’t need them for this. He takes five steps to reach the trunk, and opens it in one single motion — this, too, is empty, except for the one thing he needs.

He grabs the crowbar.

He feels the weight of the metal on his hands, squeezing his hold on its length until he grows accustomed to it. He gives it a tentative swing, far from the car so he won’t do any damage, and hears the hiss as it breaks the air around him. He takes five steps until he stands in front of the car, facing the windshield, and he doesn’t cry as he raises the crow behind his head.

He swings down.

The sound of metal bending cuts through the silence like a knife. Kiyoomi raises the crowbar and swings again to hear it once more. He does it again, and again, and again, but it’s not enough. He feels his heart beat faster and he hisses as the muscles in his arms begin to hurt.

He doesn’t stop.

Kiyoomi walks around the car as he swings, the heavy metal in his hands connecting with the body of the vehicle to dent it, with the windows to break them, with the tires to empty them. He hits with the crowbar and kicks for good measure, and the dirt of the path he’s parked on rises with each step he takes. He defaces the car until it’s beyond salvation — until it looks as broken as he feels.

Then, he cries.

The sobs hit him like a freight train, and he finds himself gasping for breath, bracing himself by leaning his weight on the side of the broken vehicle. His vision is too blurry as the crowbar falls at his feet, and both his hands move to grasp desperately at the shirt on his chest, right over his heart. He keens and he yells and he cries — he cries so much it feels like he’ll never be able to stop, so heavily it seems like it’s all that he has left. His eyes and head hurt, all the oxygen around him doesn’t seem like it’s enough to appease his greedy lungs; nothing seems enough to ease the pain inside his chest.

Kiyoomi doesn’t know how long he remains there — he sits on the ground beneath him, ignoring the dirt that clings to his clothes, and he rests his head between his knees, bracing it with both arms to remain hidden. He continues to cry, his throat hurting as he makes sound after sound — as he continues to voice out the years of pain and hurt he’s never found a way to voice before.

And then he stops.

The end of his tears is as sudden as the beginning — one moment he’s grasping at the ends of his soul with a slipping grip, the next he’s staring ahead, lips shut and blinking away the blur in his eyes. His arms surround his knees as he lets his heartbeat slow until it’s back to the way it always is — unassuming, unaffected. He stands, then, and checks his pockets. His phone and wallet are still tucked there, so he pats out as much dirt as he can, and then he turns away from the beat-up car.

He turns away from the evidence of his brokenness, from the embodiment of his shattered soul, and he walks — he doesn’t know where, but he continues to move.

He continues to move, and he doesn’t cry again.


End file.
